LG W30 first impressions: A good budget offering from LG after a very long time

LG has launched three new smartphones in India today— the W10, W30, and W30 Pro. Of the three, the LG W30 Pro is currently unavailable, with the price and availability still concealed. The W10 has been launched at Rs 8,999 and the W30 was announced at Rs 9,999. I briefly used the LG W30 at the event, and I’d like to walk you through my first impressions of the device.

Looks decent and is surprisingly light

The LG W30 has a plastic build, but the textured back and the pseudo-glass metal sandwich design gives it a premium look. The device comes in a grey and a blue colour variant, and it’s probably the only time I would say that the grey looks better than the blue variant. The latter has some colour gradients (blue with hints of yellow), which personally didn’t look appealing to me.

But when you pick up the phone, the first thing that you will NOT feel is the weight in the device. Despite a 4,000 mAh battery powering it, the LG W30 is pretty light. But what’s not pretty is the size of the device!

LG W30 features a customisable notch. Image: tech2/Nandini Yadav

Big display, big phone, small hands, slippp…

Thanks to its 6.26-inch display, the LG W30 is definitely not meant for one-handed use. I was trying to click a few selfies from the phone, and I almost dropped it at least three times. Another design detail that I noticed about the phone was the Realme-like ring around the camera lens at the back. The LG W30 has a red colour ring around its primary sensor at the rear.

The display quality seemed good to me. The colours are nice and bright] and even the tiny text looked sharp and easy to read. The brightness on auto mode did make the screen a little dull a few times, though. Another thing about the smartphone’s display, which is a bit gimmicky yet interesting, is the customisable option for the notch. You can head to Settings>Display>Notch and choose between the waterdrop, V-notch or a full bezel on the top.

I love the stock Android UI, but the experience isn’t lag-free

Besides interesting pricing, what has also changed with LG’s W-Series is the user interface. The W-Series of phones use a stock Android experience based on Android Pie. Of course, the stock Android animations are limited, but the basic UI is easy to use.

In terms of performance, the LG W30 is powered by a Helio P22 chip, with 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of internal storage. While the overall performance, in the brief time I used the device, seemed decent, I did find the camera app lagging a few times when I was testing the rear camera.

LG W30 sports a triple-camera setup. Image: tech2/Nandini Yadav

For a 1oK phone, the camera is cool.com

At Rs 9,999, the LG W30 comes with a triple-camera setup, comprising a 12 MP low-light system, 13 MP wide-angle system, and a 2 MP depth sensor. For selfies, it has a 16 MP sensor. When I used the phone, I realised that the viewfinder does not show good previews but the processed images come out pretty decent. You can check out some of the camera samples in the Flickr album below. Some of the shots of vehicles were clicked from a moving car to check the image stabilisation on the phone, and they look good.

Interestingly though, the LG W30 comes with a low-light sensor, but the results didn’t look too good in low light. The low-light image I clicked just looked over saturated. You will find this sample in the Flickr album as well.

LG W30 seems like a good addition to the mid-budget smartphone segment

In the sub-Rs 10,000 category, the LG W30 will compete with the likes of Realme 3 Pro, Redmi Note 7A, and Samsung Galaxy M30. And with the triple camera sensor, stock Android UI, and 4,000 mAh battery, the LG W30 looks like a good deal.

Now, what we just wait to see is how well the LG W30 perform in the long haul. Does it make for a good daily driver and does it have the potential to beat its competitors? You will get all these answers in our review of the LG W30 coming soon! Stay tuned…